Hiking Club Trail #50 HIKE DETAILS Date: October 2, 2022 Location: Tower, MN Length: 2.5 Miles Difficulty: Easy Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 142.0 of 197 The first time I visited this park I was 12 and on a school field trip where we toured the mine. Fast forward many years and here we are again - the mine is currently closed for tours (maintenance) but we are here to hike. The trail starts as a tour of the outside of the mine buildings - giving you a full history of the mine before taking you into the woods. Fall was in full force here - the colors were really popping. We finished our hike - then headed to our cabin rental in Remer where we will be staying for the week while visiting more state parks.
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We stopped by to get our passport stamp on the way up North. The stamp is not at the Park it is at the DNR office in town. Once we found the stamp we headed out to the Park (which is a lot bigger than I anticipated). The park is used more as a mountain bike park - hiking is allowed on a lot of the trails but you will share them with bikers. There are many lakes inside the park created from old mine sites.
First we stopped at Croft Mine (which is closed and fenced in) we looked through the fence at the old buildings then drove to Yawkey Mine Lake. I hiked down to the lake - almost got run over by a couple of bikes (it is hike at your own risk) took some pictures and we headed out. I will definitely be back - with my bike next time! Hiking Club Trail #49 HIKE DETAILS Date: September 19, 2022 Location: Battle Lake, MN Length: 3.3 Miles Difficulty: Easy Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 139.5 of 197 Birthday hike 2022! The hiking club trail takes you around Annie Battle Lake. An extremely clear and pristine lake - probably because there are no motorized boats allowed on the lake. The trail was easy but beautiful - a really well maintained park. Fall was just starting to peek through. Prairies were full of wildflowers. We hiked to the sounds of loons. Great day for an early birthday hike. Ended the day hiking to the top of Inspiration Peak on the way home. Hiking Club Trail #48 HIKE DETAILS Date: August 21, 2022 Location: Altura, MN Length: 2.2 Miles Difficulty: Difficult Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 136.2 of 197 This park is popular and everyone here has dogs (thankfully we left ours home). If your dogs are like mine and are a bit reactive around other dogs this is not the park for them. The hiking club trail basically climbs to the top of a bluff then takes you back down. Lots of rocks and roots combined with narrow trails, cliffs and a river crossing made this hike difficult. Hiking with a person who is visually impaired all of these things combined make for a challenging day - even more challenging when you add in a lot of steps with no railings. Some of the trails here reminded me of the North Shore - I enjoyed the challenges and the comforting reminder of one of my favorite places. Coming down the bluff there are hundreds of stairs, some so steep they are labeled a ladder. It was a good and challenging day spent in nature enjoying the bluff lands of southern MN. Hiking Club Trail #47 HIKE DETAILS Date: August 13, 2022 Location: Granite Falls, MN Length: 4.3 Miles Difficulty: Easy to Moderate with some larger hills Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 134.0 of 197 FROGS!!! So many frogs. The paths, especially in the wooded areas, were covered with leopard frogs. The dogs were going nuts for 4 miles trying to chase them all. This park was hilly and went from prairie to woods. At the tops of the hills there were expansive views of the Yellow Medicine River Valley. Wildflowers spanned the prairies. Parts of the trail double as a horse trail - we met some very nice people on horses towards the beginning of the trail. This park is beautiful - some parts are a little under maintained. Hiking Club Trail #46 HIKE DETAILS Date: July 3, 2022 Location: Watson, MN Length: 2.0 Miles Difficulty: Easy Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 129.7 of 197 We needed to get everyone out of the house and at the same time needed to find a fairly quiet park for the dogs since it was the 4th of July weekend. The western part of the state has seen a lot of flooding this year - because of this the lower campground was closed at this park - making it more quiet than it would have otherwise been on a holiday weekend. PERFECT! The trail was muddy with knee tall weeds and a couple of downed trees due to the flooding - but all in all it was manageable. Nice trail through old growth cottonwood forests and the prairie. No roots or rocks to contend with - exactly what we needed. We were coming off of Covid quarantine and needed something to do so we decided to check a Passport Club stamp off of our list and visit this SRA. Honestly not a lot to see - the park was hard to find, weeds cover the sign from the road and the GPS is slightly confused about it's exact location.
There is a nice fishing pier that has good views of the lake. Plus a small hiking/horse trail that we explored a bit - didn't go too far afraid the fatigue of covid would come back. NOTE: The Passport Club Stamp is not located at the park it is up the road a bit at the DNR offices in Hutchinson. This park was supposed to see us completing Hiking Club trail #46 but Lake of the Woods had other plans... The lake was at record high levels - we knew it was unlikely that we would be able to hike this one since the trail was right on the beach but we were still hoping. It just wasn't in the cards - 40 feet into the trail it was impassable. So we enjoyed our first time seeing Lake of the Woods by spending some time wading in the clear waters. Until next time Zippel Bay - we will be back for that password! Hiking Club Trail #45 HIKE DETAILS Date: June 9, 2022 Location: Argyle, MN Length: 1.4 Miles Difficulty: Easy Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 127.7 of 197 Nice flat grass educational trail with both forest and prairie views as well as nice view points of Middle River. We found quite a few yellow lady slippers blooming in the forest (my first time seeing the yellow ones). We got almost to the end of the trail and ran into some flooding so we decided to turn back since we already had the password. We finished the trail and then drove over to the mill historic site. We enjoyed sitting on a picnic table and listening to all the birds sing and smelling the lilacs that were in full bloom. On this side of the park there are small sand dunes along the river which felt misplaced but nice. The dogs enjoyed being able to cool off in the river. Nothing terribly special about this HCT trail but the park has a lot more to offer than just that trail! Hiking Club Trail #44 HIKE DETAILS Date: June 8, 2022 Location: Lake Bronson, MN Length: 3.4 Miles Difficulty: Easy Cumulative Hiking Club Miles: 126.3 of 197 Just due to the location of this park I wasn't overly excited to go - boy was I wrong. This park has been one of my favorites so far. Driving in on miles of farm roads felt kind of apocalyptic - it felt like we left civilization - there was no-one for miles. The perception makes you think this park is going to be small and underfunded - WRONG! This park is large and spans prairies, forests and lakes - definitely a hidden gem! Bonus for this trip NO mosquitoes - which allowed us to slow down and enjoy the scenery! But we did all come out of there covered in ticks! Add this park to your must see list. We earned our 125 mile patch here but they didn't have any patches available. We will get it at the next park. |
AuthorThis is my quest to find my place beneath the stars - outside the confines of my office and without the pressures of everyday life. Archives
November 2023
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